(a) Tier I. A recomputation is made if any social security wages or railroad compensation for a year in which the employee returned to work are higher than the earnings for a year included in the previous computation of the tier I PIA, as shown in part 225 of this chapter. The higher earnings are used instead of the lower earnings for the earlier year to determine the average monthly wage or average indexed monthly earnings. Part 225 of this chapter describes how a PIA is recomputed.
(b) Tier II. The additional service is added to the years of service previously used in computing the tier II rate. The additional compensation is used to recompute the average monthly compensation, if the compensation for a month in which the employee returned to railroad service is higher than the compensation for a month used in the previous computation of the average monthly compensation. The higher monthly compensation is used instead of the lower compensation for a previous month to determine the new average monthly compensation as shown in §226.62 of this part. The increased years of service and average monthly compensation are used in computing a new tier II rate, as shown in §226.11 of this part.